I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

How to Make a Rope Basket

Today my friend Zoe is popping over to do a super fun guest post. Thanks for sharing your skills with us, Zoe!

Hello to all my friends here in Mavis’s corner of the web!

I’m excited to be sharing with you a tutorial on making rope bowls. I started doing these about 2 years ago and am having a blast. They don’t typically make it into my etsy shop as they go fast here locally but now you can make yourself one! Have fun with this project. The options are endless with size, color, shape, and handle variations.

1. Choose fabric scraps and rope. I use quilt cotton weight fabrics as that’s mostly what I have. Anything fairly lightweight will work. Heavier fabrics will get too bulky. For rope, I really like cloth wash line. It’s sturdy but not extremely thick, which is necessary to fit under the machine’s presser foot. Piping also works. Keep in mind that the thinner the rope, the more yardage will be needed to make a bowl. For a bowl about 8 inches in diameter you’ll need 8-10 yards of rope.

2. Cut strips approximately 3/4″ wide. Bias and cross grain strips work best as they have a little stretch to help ease itself together when wrapping the rope but if my strips are long grain, I use those too. I’m all about using up what I have to save it from the landfill! Another thrifty tip? If you have selvages left after cutting, save those for the kids to use as string in all their various projects.

3. Choose a strip to begin with. This will be the center of the bowl bottom. Hold it in your hand at an angle and lay the rope on with the end of the rope being in the center of the end.

4. Fold down the top corner.

5. Fold left side over.

6. Fold right side down just a bit, at a wide angle.

7. Fold right side over completely to the left and begin wrapping, always wrapping from right to left. Keep it snug but not ridiculously tight.

8. Once you have about 10 inches wrapped, hold the end with a clothespin.
Time to begin sewing! Choose your thread (top thread will show on the inside of the bowl, bobbin thread on the outside). Set the stitch to a fairly large zigzag.

9. Wrap a bit of a circle with your fabric covered rope. Begin sewing in center (where the scissors point is in photo). Remember to backstitch!

10. When it’s time to pivot, put needle in down position.

11. Slowly turn and keep sewing, making sure to keep rope close to the center circle. We don’t want holes in the bottom of our bowl.

12. Sew until you have about 4 inches of wrapped rope remaining. Time to add another fabric strip. Unwrap 3/4 inch of fabric.

13. Lay new strip on the old one.

14. Begin wrapping again, being sure the end of the last strip stays tucked in. The little corner that does stick out a bit will need to be caught in your stitching.

15. Keep wrapping, sewing, and joining ends until bowl bottom is as large as you want it. Mine is about 6 1/2 inches.

16. Tip the bottom up and continue sewing. Keep it tipped so the sides start to curve up. The higher the tip, the straighter the sides. Another way to make the sides straighter is to keep tension on the rope as you are sewing. The harder you pull on it, the straighter the sides.

17. I enjoy watching the sides begin to grow!

18. If you run out of bobbin thread, just reload it and start again. Backstitch!

19. To end, cut the cord at an angle.

20. Wrap to hide the cord.

21. With 5-6 inches of wrapped cord remaining, make a loop and stick the end in between the last two cord rounds to hide it. Secure with a pin. You can see my blue seam ripper pointing to the white pin head.

22. Slowly (don’t hit the pin!) sew the loop in place. Backstitch!

23. Remove the pin and admire your bowl!

If you’d rather not sew but enjoy cooking, you can always sample my recipes over at my blog. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!
Zoë

Glad to see that you are back to feeling energized. I had 3 years straight where family losses seemed to control our lives . It takes a while but the joy will return!!!

Loved the baskets.

The red wine vinegar will not go bad if kept at a cool temperature. I know it sounds crazy but tomato soup is a really good choice for sick days. Tons of vitamins and it will help with the raw scratchy feeling in the throat.

Two questions:
1. Yesterday you said your daughter would have a gap year in college, what is that?
2. The home that you have in the Northeast. Do you use this as a rental? How do you keep tabs on its general upkeep and security. We have the opportunity to keep a small property in the mountains (8 hour drive) and would love some advice on a “second’ property.

My machine is just a regular one, tho it is a high quality machine : a Bernina B350 patchwork edition (I make a lot of quilts). Any machine that can do a zigzag stitch can make these bowls! Have you had yours serviced lately? Could be an internal issue that creates problems with turning. Good luck!

I’m a very ameture sewer and find that my sewing machine really struggles with getting through thick fabrics, so I don’t think it’d be able to handle this project. Do you think that I need a more substantial sewing machine, or do I need to use a different needle for bigger jobs? Any experienced sewers out there who can throw me some advice? I love this project!

Any machine should be able to handle this project as long as it can zigzag stitch. You could try a denim needle (size 90 or 100) and see if that helps. And use piping instead of wash line. The wash line is more dense and might not work with your machine. Good luck! Feel free to email me with more questions! zoedawn @ msn . com

Hi, Harmony
Most machines have a dial or lever that allows you to adjust the presser foot. Mine, a Kenmore, is a dial inside the left door that opens to the light above the needle. You may need to change the pressure so that’s it’s less on whatever fabric you are sewing–I have found that bulkier fabrics need less pressure and lighter fabrics more. Check your machine manual if you have one. The above tips are also good ones. Additionally, check to make sure your feed dogs are fully engaged and that your presser foot is correctly/fully seated. Again check your manual for information. Crafting is such fun. Best of luck!

After looking at the photo between points 14 and 15, I couldn’t help but think that it would make a great trivet for placing hot dishes on the table! A perfect gift for those who like to set their table matchy-matchy with the plates and napkins or for different holidays. 🙂 Thanks for the great tutorial!

I do not! It’s not too difficult, though. The only tricky part is getting them centered with each other.

Figure out where you want the handle(s) and then when it comes times to form them, just loop the rope up as high as you want the handle and don’t sew at that section. Start sewing again where the handle comes down. Continue around to other handle and do the same. Then the second round of rope will be sewn right on top of the handles. I like two or three rounds of rope for the handles, one isn’t quite sturdy enough.

If this doesn’t make sense, send me an email and I can take some pics for you. zoedawnshop (at) gmail (dot) com

I make these too, but no matter how hard I try my side’s don’t come out straight. They are always slanted. And then there is that darn zigzag stitch. Mine sure don’t come out as nicely as yours do. What is the secret to that.

Hello! I have been trying to make these bowls recently and have been having a lot of trouble. I originally got my instructions from a different site and they suggested that a polyester rope would work. So with my first attempt I used a polyester blend rope and it didn’t work with my sewing machine. For my second attempt I used more durable thread with a heavy duty needle. This still did not work. So for my third attempt I bought a cotton rope that has a polyester core (closest product I could find in stores to plain cotton). I also made sure this rope was smaller in width to help my machine. BUT IT STILL WON’T WORK. Can I please get some advice? Do I need to find 100% cotton rope or could this possibly be a problem with my machine? I have a Simple 2263 Sewing Machine. Thanks!!

Hi Casey! Hmm. I use many types of rope and have never seen any difference in how my machine handles it so I’m guessing it’s a machine issue. Without testing it myself, I’m not sure what to advise. What exactly is the issue? Thread jam? Needles breaking? Feed dog not pulling rope through?

Thank you. It took a long time to find clearly written and pictured instructions for these types of baskets. I no longer make them and I want to give my supplies away but couldn’t find my instruction sheets. Now I can carry on with my donation!